Italian Cheese and Wine Pairings - with a nod to the martini!

Last night Darling Husband and I went to our first wine club meeting since December, and as luck would have it, the focus was on Italy.  Fantastico!  There are probably as many delicious Italian cheeses as there are delicious Italian wines.  Since we have both red and white wine drinkers in the club, I wanted to bring a little something for everyone to enjoy that would elevate the wine tasting to another level.  Plus, a cheese board isn't really a cheese board with just one cheese, right?

First up (on the right), was a delicious, mild, 4 week old goat cheese from the Piedmont region of Italy called Tumin Rutulin.  The edible ash rind is from the juniper plant.  The one that makes gin, yes.  But it turns out juniper also imparts it's sweet deliciousness to goat cheese.  The sweetness from the juniper was immediately obvious to me, but maybe because I knew about the juniper ash in advance, my mind was playing palate tricks on me.It can't hurt that the goats helping to make this cheese probably munch on nothing but sweet mountain grasses and flowers.  Perfect on a little slice of bread, and absolutely spread-able while retaining a soft crumble.  It would also be amazing in a salad with some spring greens and some blueberries.  In fact, I'm eating it right now with my fingers!  It also helped mellow out an angry little Pinot Grigio, giving it a nice smoothness.  Man Who Sneers at Goats (Cheese) will sadly never give this one a try, but my slightly cheese-phobic friend really liked this one last night (even before a few glasses of vino)!

On the left, cut into cunning little triangles, was the Pecorino Ginepro.  Pecorino identifies this as an Italian sheep's milk cheese, while Ginepro lets you know that the rind is washed with balsamic vinegar and juniper berries during the aging process.  I wasn't planning on having a juniper theme for the party, but there you go.  I must be craving a martini...  Anyway, the sheep's milk here is nice and rich, with just a touch of oiliness on the lips after, and the juniper and balsamic lend a woodsy, salty, sweetness to the cheese.  Sometimes, I find that rind coatings don't make a  huge difference in the flavor of the cheese, but this combination of acid and fruit really come through here.  This cheese was perfect with the red wine from Calabria that I brought.  The gaglioppo grapes in this wine had just enough tannin without being too overwhelming, and the richness of the cheese gave extra body to an already delicious wine.  I'll be snaking on those cheese leftovers after dinner.

I am thrilled to be turning the last few months of Cheese Dreams into cheese realities!  What have you been tasting?

Cheese for a Wednesday - pt 26 Happy California Sheep!

Oh my has it been a week.  And it won't be getting any better until mid-April.  Apologies in advance for the lack of posts, but I'm almost done with my MBA, and after that's done, I'll be extra cheesy!

In the meantime, it is a Wednesday, and so I owe you a new cheese!  La Panza Gold  is a sheep's milk cheese from Rinconada Dairy north of Los Angeles in San Louis Obispo County.  It is one of the few dairies that I've found in Southern California (the SoCal:NorCal ratio is heavily weighted in favor of Northern California).  They have 200 sheep and a small herd of goats happily munching away on the grasses of the chaperral overlooking the Pacific.  They also have a farm-stay program, where you can go for the weekend, milk goats and work on the farm.  It sounds like a lot of fun to me - I just have to convince the DH to come with me!

So - La Panza Gold is a hard sheep's milk cheese, with some crystalization, kind of like pecorino romano.  The rind of this cheese is washed with sheep milk whey as it ages, which gives is a really beautiful golden color.  The cheese is shaped in a basket mold, which gives it a really cool look.

You could easily serve this nutty, earthy, sweet cheese by just breaking it up into free-form chunks, and serving it on a cheese plate with some grapes to help bring out the sweetness in the cheese.  It also lends itself very easily to the same kinds of uses a pecorino romano or pamigiano-reggiano - grating onto pasta or what ever you grate hard salty/sweet cheese on.  The other night, I had made some mushroom barley soup that turned into a kind of pilaf when all the moisture was absorbed.  It still tasted great, so I steamed up some brussels sprouts (I just love how cute they are!), and used the carrot peeler to shave curls of this beautiful cheese on top, which really added to the dish.  See the little holes in the peels?

Sweet cheese dreams friends!

Super Bowl Snacking!

Who dat?  Oh yeah baby.  I speak football.  I don't watch a lot of football, but when I do, I get kind of involved.  And, I tend to eat a lot of crap while I watch the game - chips, spinach dip (my favorite!!), nuts, more chips - nothing fancy.  I used to eat chili until the chili-maker retired from the business.  Since I'm now the cheese lady, I figured I could make this Super Bowl even more exciting with some great cheese.  The Cheese Store of Beverly Hills was actually a Super Bowl sale - 10% off if you said "Who Dat" when ordering cheese.  They were also closing early so they could get home, put their feed up, and root on the Saints while munching on some tasty cheese.  One of the owners is from New Orleans, so you can appreciate their enthusiasm.  I just love having another opportunity to bring cheese to a party and look like a rock star.

So, off I went to the game, cheese board cheese knives and cheeses in tow ready to share the cheese love and possibly to distract people from the game for a few minutes.  I think I succeeded, thanks in no small part to the good people at Andrew's Cheese Shop and Noord Hollander four-year old Gouda (top left with a rich orange color).  This Gouda tastes so sweet, I could chunk it up and put it in a candy bowl.  It has the crunchy texture of Parmesean thanks to the crystalization that happens during aging, and has a distinctive butterscotch flavor.

This Super Bowl is also brought to you by Marisa (top right).  This award winning sheep's milk cheese comes from Wisconsin and has a perfect sweet/salty balance.  The high butterfat content gives it a beautiful creaminess.  It is the perfect snacking cheese.

Finally, this Super Bowl is brought to you by La Serena (bottom left).  This was the "challenging" cheese, but even the 11 year-olds liked it!  This semi-soft sheep's milk cheese from Spain spreads great on a cracker when properly warmed up to room temperature.  It has a sharpness and an earthiness that makes it really interesting - one of those cheeses that make you stop and go "Huh.  What was that?"  I will need to spend more time on this one, as its backstory deserves its own post.  If you can't wait, please check out Angela's Food Love blog here for a great description.  I don't think it was as stinky as she thought, but we agree on the exciting flavor.

I think the only one disappointed by the cheese was my sweet friend Tessa (right).  Look how well she begs!  But none for her!  Sorry Tessa!  After the trophy was presented, all the La Serena was gone, and there was just enough Gouda and Marisa left for some good snacks this week.  Hooray!

No matter which team you rooted for on Sunday (or if you just don't care), I hope you had a happy, cheesy weekend!

And Now for Something Completely Different...

*Apologies for no photos, but please, please, please click the links. They are hilarious!

Saturday night, I found myself in a dark basement sitting on an uncomfortable chair, laughing my a@% off.  Darling Husband and I had gone out to meet some friends and enjoy an evening of twisted drag queen frivolity.  We knew it was going to be a great night when Dina Martina's first song was the most ridiculous version of Duran Duran's Rio that I had ever heard.  At one point, she sang something about Rio being one of the longest songs ever (which it is, really...), after which she proceeded to eat a plate of spaghetti with Ragu and some Kraft Parmesean cheese (the kind in the cardboard tube).  A girl after my own heart - while waiting for Simon LeBon to finish singing something about the dusty land, Ms. Dina dumped a good 1/4 cup of powdered cheese right in her mouth, not needing spaghetti or sauce to sully the flavor of, well, whatever it is that that "cheese" tastes like.

I wasn't expecting cheese references in my evening of surreal, gender bending humor, but was certainly delighted!  There were several others throughout the night.  I think I'll save her story of her grandmother surviving the depression by milking the family pug and making delicious pug's milk cheese for another time - I want to look into the feasibility of this in the real world (I doubt that dog's milk has quite the level of butterfat necessary to make quality cheese, but...hey - it was the Great Depression!  Never mind the fact that the idea of milking a dog just seems a bit odd to me.  You?)

No, neither the spaghetti interlude at nor the story of how Pugsley saved the family compare to what happened during gift time.  An unsuspecting audience member bravely stepped onstage.  "Do you like cheese?"  Ms. Dina asked.  Of course, the answer was "Yes."  "Do you have chapped lips?" was the odd follow-up question.  The answer there was also "Yes."  Can you guess what product contains cheese and is good for your lips?

My answer would be a nice, oily Manchego or Zamorano sheep's milk cheese.  But I would be wrong.

What Ms. Dina pulled out of the bag for this nice audience member was...


CHEETO LIP BALM!!!!!

Discuss.

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 19 - A new sheep in the 'hood

Last week at Andrew's Cheese Shop, I spotted this ancient looking cheese sitting in the case.  "What is this," I wondered out loud.  Samples were proffered, and as per usual, stories were told and comparisons - both ridiculous and relevant were made.

While this cheese, Brebis du Lavort, may look like it's shape was designed by druids back in the 2nd century BC  it was actually created in the 1990s by cheese maker Patrick Beaumont in the Auvergne region of France.  I thought it was pretty clever of Mr. Beaumont to design a cheese that looked like it had been dug out of the ground, or stored in an ancient log  but was created during the Clinton adminstration, about the time that Shabby Chic was really hitting it's stride.  Andrew wasn't so sure that the good folk of the Auvergne are capable of that kind of marketing ploy.  It seems that this area of France is less modern than other areas.   Anyway...far be it from me to judge.  Especially when the cheese is good!

The design is modern, but the mold is borrowed  from a Spanish cheese called Tronchon (which Andrew also has - must get that one for a comparison.).  This mold is caked on thick.  The bark-like texture keeps the cheese nice and moist during the aging process, but I didn't even give it a taste.  Did I mention it's bark-like texture?  This cheese is aged in a in an old water tower, which is unique, I think.  Unfortunately, I learned about this before I tasted the cheese and so, in the back of my mind I was thinking "moldy water tower."  It was interesting how the shape of the cheese seemed to make a difference in each bite.  A bite taken from the top of the "volcano" reminded me of a nice sharp cheddar, while a bite taken from the bulge just made me think of a (tasty) old water pipe.  Very odd.  Andrew claims a definite flavor of hazelnuts.  Maybe I need to eat more hazlenuts.

I think this is one of those cheeses that tasted better in a sample at the store than in chunks.  The complexity of this cheese requires more than chunks and crackers.  Now that I'm full, and all the cheese is gone, I'm thinking that it would have been perfect on a baked potato.  The old water pipe flavor might have mellowed to an "earthy" flavor that would have rocked with some parsley and butter.  Next time.

Sweet dreams!

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 18 - Hilarious name edition

From the Basque region of France comes a cheese with the best name ever.  Etorki.  From what I've been able to determine, it is, in fact, pronounced the way it is spelled.  Ee-tork-ee.  Ha!  I love it because it sooo doesn't sound like a French word.  When I was at Andrew's Cheese Store on Tuesday night, another cheese caught my eye (You'll be hearing about that one later.  I promise.).  That one was all wrapped up, and I was almost out the door when I noticed the tag for Etorki.  Again.  I've been bypassing this cheese for six months!  Shame on me.

Anyway, this sheep's milk cheese was described by Andrew as "the Sarah Lee of cheese."  As in, "nobody doesn't like" Etorki.  I have to say, it's probably true.  This is definitely a sheep's milk cheese.  There is a certain salty, oiliness to sheep's milk cheese that is present in Etorki.  What is missing is a kind mealiness - like dry mashed potato (not sure of that analogy, but it will do for now) - that I've had in other sheep's milk cheese.  This cheese is almost unctuous.  Creamy, melt in your mouth goodness that does leave your lips with that sticky, "I just ate something really rich" feeling.  This cheese is mild, and you have to really pay attention to find the nuance, but it's there.  I tasted some mellow black olive, a little bit of grass on a sunny hillside, and a some sweet caramel.  In fact, I was just inspired to make some buttery salted caramels.  Yea.  That's it.

So, besides being a real crowd pleaser, this cheese is special because it is made exclusively from milk created by cute little black-faced Manech sheep.  After the curds are shaped, the cheeses are soaked in brine for 3-6 months, making a for a rind that is capable of protecting the cheese during the rest of the aging process.  We tasted the rind, and while the texture wasn't great, it wasn't shoe leather, and it had that extra bite of salt that I was missing (I'm only starting to appreciate mild tasting cheeses) in the rest of the cheese.

I don't think Etorki is going to be something that I dream about every night, but if I'm taking cheese for a party where I don't really know people's palates, this might be the sheep's milk cheese on my cheese tray.  It is unusual enough to be a conversation starter (not to mention the fun name as a conversation of it's own), but the complexity of these cheese is subtle enough to please the fussiest taste buds.

Even if you never get to try this cheese, you've got a new alternate cuss word.  Someone cut you off in traffic?  Etorki!  Someone use up all the hot water?  Etorki!  Need some cheese for sandwiches?  Oh yea, etorki!

Have I Mentioned Marisa?

I've been meaning to share this sheep's milk cheese with you for a while, but I've been too happy munching on it!  This amazing cheese (named for the cheesemaker's daughter) from Carr Valley Cheese Company in Wisconsin is aged for six months and has an incredible earthy, nutty-ness.  Plus, as a sheep's milk cheese, it has a naturaly high butterfat content, which gives it a great richness.  I could snack on this all day (and I have been)!

I've now shared this cheese at two parties - a Pinot Noir tasting and at Thanksgiving.  (In the picture, it's the one in back.) It went great with the Pinot, and at Thanksgiving, even though it was competing with a lot of stunners (more on that later), it really held it's own.  The Professor appreciated it's mid-western roots, and I love the fact that it almost has the texture of a cheddar, but it is clearly something else all together.

I read a restaurant review lately that described one dish as "the nice sister that holds your hand after [another really strong flavored dish] has verbally assaulted you." Perhaps out of context it doesn't make any sense, but Marisa really is the nice, interesting sister who might not  be the one you notice first when you walk into the room, but once you meet her, you keep wanting to go back and spend more time with her.

If you can find this one, buy it!  Keep it around for snacking on and sharing with friends!

Sheep Cheese Party

I was going to name this post "Sheep Orgy," but that just sounds naughty.  After the Friday cheese purchasing spree at Andrew's Cheese Shop, I wend out with my friend who shall from here on in be known as "Man Who Sneers at Goat (Cheese)" and ended up at the Silverlake Cheese Store where I continued withe the cheese buying orgy.  I've spent the last few days coming down from a serious butterfat overdose.  What can I say - some people buy too many purses, I buy too much cheese!

Anyway, I decided that since I was with Man Who Sneers at Goat (Cheese), I decided to go on a Sheep Cheese buying spree.  We ended up with FIVE varieties - four sheep cheeses and a cow's milk cheese.  I swear we were only going to get one or two.  OMG.  Don't fear - you will be learning about all of them in the coming days.  In the way squirrels save up acorns for winter, I eat cheese and save up the memories for the days I can't get out early enough to get to the cheese store.
  

With five cheeses in the bag, we threw an impromptu cheese tasting party, and Darling Husband, MWSAG(C) and I thoughtfully ate our way through close to a pound of sheep's milk cheese, washed down with a nice Zinfandel.  There are many ways to have a cheese tasting party.  You can focus on cheeses from a single country, cheeses from a single style (bloomy, washed, etc), you can have a cheese from each style, etc.  We decided to focus on cheeses from a single milk.  Hooray for sheep!  We started with a really mild soft sheep's cheese, and worked our way up to incredibly sharp aged pecorino (that's Italian for sheep).  It was pretty amazing to see who different aging and preparation methods create completely different cheeses.  They all had a great richness, and a great sweetness that made the tasting a lot of fun.

Afterward, Darling Husband was overcome by butterfat shock and had to go home to nap.  MWSAG(C) and I went out for healthy, detoxing salads.

So, a few mass tasting rules - taste from mild to strong, take a good sniff before you eat each one, pick a theme (optional, but fun), and stop eating before you start sweating butterfat!

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 10

Here we are again.  A Wednesday night - the least exciting day of the week - always in need of a little bit of a perk-up.  Tonight we are featuring aged sheep's milk cheese from Spain named Ombra.  The rind on this is hard as a rock, but such a warm brown color, that I had to bring it home.  And, did I mention that it smells amazing!  Rich, salty, nutty.  Yum!

Because this cheese is aged at least 4 months, it is beautifully crumbly (more time aging = more moisture loss = crumbles!) with little air holes throughout the paste.  But even dry, it sports the oily sheen of a good sheep cheese.  It is so light and delicious, though.  Not a bit oily on the tongue.  It isn't overly salty, and I swear I can taste the fresh spring grass that the sheep were grazing on in beautiful Catalonia.  I can't tell you how much I need to go there!

Anyway, this cheese is subtly complex.  There is a sweetness to it - butterscotch maybe?  And near the rind, I swear I could taste a little citrus - grapefruit?  Further research was necessary - a few more bites.  Yup, a definite sweetness at the end, and it smells of the meadows.  Sigh.  I really likes this cheese - just don't eat the rind.  To hard.

This cheese would be amazing on a cheese plate - a little cube of surprise to enjoy with a Zinfandel. (Which I did!)  I also ended up grating a huge amount of it to put on a dinner of ravioli, broccoli, peas and a little olive oil infused with garlic, salt, pepper and basil.  A great alternative to Parmesan. Yum!

I'm dreaming of a cheese trip to Spain!  How about you?

Packed in Rosemary, Flown in from Spain!

Continuing on the theme of wrapped and packed cheese for this week, for your drooling pleasure, Romao!  This sheep's milk cheese from Spain is rubbed in olive oil and rosemary during its eight months in the cave.  This cheese is 27% milk fat!  It is definitely a bit on the oily side, or at least the chunk I got from the end of a wheel was.  But you'd be oily too if you were marinated in olive oil  for eight months!  It looks really shaggy with all the rosemary stuck to the oil and cheese.  Romao comes in one pound wheels from the region of Cuenca, Spain in the center/east of the country.  According to Wikipedia (I know, I know...), this region is full of gorges, which I'm sure create a very exciting climate for the sheep!  This is definitely a sheep cheese.  Full of its own oils and nuttiness, it has a complexity beyond the rosemary.

Anyway, the rosemary flavor doesn't permeate the interior of the paste, but like the other cheeses this week, the flavor does go at least 1/2 inch in.  Because it is aged for as long as it is, it has that crumbly, almost crunchy texture.  The oil bath does reduce the crunchiness a bit, but it doesn't drown it out completely.

Perhaps the thing I was least expecting is that the shaggy rind wipes right off, due I suppose to the olive oil mixed with the rosemary crust.  Originally, I cut the rind off, but after the Darling Husband swiped the last TWO pieces at the same time, I needed to figure out a way to feed my own cheese hunger, successfully wiping it all off, and munching down on the completely edible rind dimpled with impressions left by the rosemary leaves.  Sigh.

Oh, and very tasty with a Cabernet Franc from the Santa Ynez Valley, though I'm sure a Spanish red wine would be perfect! Ole.

Cheese for a Wednesday, pt. 4

As promised, I am giving some love to sheep cheese, and no better day to give this love than a Wednesday, the day I have unofficially devoted to exciting new cheese. I managed to get out of the office and made it to Andrew's Cheese before it closed. I was looking in the case for labels with little sheep on them, and didn't find as many sheep icons as cow and goat ones, and realized that I needed to love sheep cheese for another reason - it's kind of the undersheep, as it were, in the cheese world, and I love an underdog!

I was going to get an Ossau-Iraty from France because my friend VG really enjoyed that cheese on vacation last month, but I got there and I saw a funny, almost flying saucer shaped cheese with a lumpy brown rind from Coventry, England called Berkswell with the sheep icon on the label. Hooray! Something totally new. And so delicious. Dry and crumbly, but not flaky. A sweet nutty-ness that went great with the chocolate almond crostini. Andrew says there's a pineapple finish. I don't know if I got that, but it was definitely amazing.

I asked him for another sheep cheese to serve as counterpoint to the Berkswell. Most sheep's milk cheese are hard cheeses, and I was hoping to find a nice soft sheep cheese. Apparently, that is because they have a higher protein content. The opposite is true of goat cheese, with it's lower protein content it is easier to make a soft cheese than a hard one. But I found a great semi-soft sheep cheese from Portugal called La Serena. It smelled like black olives at first whiff, and the first taste tastes just like it smells. The end is a little bit bitter, but in a good way. With all of these complex tastes and smells, it doesn't have any of that barnyard/ammonia smell that comes from a washed rind "stinky" cheese (because it isn't a washed rind cheese - duh!).

So, we had a delicious Wednesday dinner of sheep's milk cheese, chocolate almond crostini and Sangiovese. My skin is a little extra oily at the moment, but it's good for skin, right? We ended with a great over-the-fence chat with neighbors, an an evening of my favorite Fox television - Glee with a starter of So You Think You Can Dance. Nobody ever said I wasn't a little cheesy!

Sweet dreams everyone, and continue to count those happy little sheep!

Baa!

Oh yes, we went to the LA County Fair this weekend! We trembled at all the scary rides, ate all the weird fried things, saw all the prize winning tablescapes and quick breads, went to the pig races (Lindsay Loham was the big winner), and spent A LOT of time at the farm!

We saw sheep get sheared, and went to a goat milking demo, but wasn't allowed to try milking because I'm over 12 years old. Such a huge bummer! I got pics of the milking rig, but was so disappointed that we didn't stay till the end. The wool lining was that I ended up really bonding with the sheep.

Now, this isn't to say that the goats weren't totally adorable, and I still love them, their milk, and their cheese. There is even more love there now that I've pet their ears and stroked their fuzzy necks. The good news is that my heart has expanded to include woolly sheep! The way they look into your eyes and let you scratch their heads is pretty awesome. I think that I was the only adult in the petting zoo without a 5 year old, but I had so much fun, and got some great pics of my fuzzy dairy producing friends!

So, I've vowed to highlight more sheep's milk cheeses, starting today! At the moment, the sheep's milk cheese I'm most familiar with is Feta, with all it's salty yummy-ness, perfect in a summer Greek salad and Pecorino Romano, which I often substitute for Parmigiano-Reggiano. (BTW - Pecorino tranlates loosely in Italian as "little sheep" so whenever you see a pecorino cheese, you know it's got sheep's milk in it.) But a quick look in Murray's Cheese Handbook reminds me that there are so many great sheep's milk cheeses to taste and talk about!

I'll leave you with a fun one introduced to me by Andrew at Andrew's Cheese. Zamorano is a great Spanish sheep's milk cheese that he suggests when you are looking for Manchego (another sheep cheese). Manchego isn't regulated, so it can be made wherever and however (but it is always pretty tasty). Zamorano is regulated, which is good for consistency. It's a nice firm cheese, and still goes great with quince paste. It has a dry, confident nutty flavor that is really delicious. Check it out!

Sweet dreams all, and don't forget to count your sheep!